When using a firearm, a cartridge casing will occasionally be broken or jammed in the cartridge chamber. This happens specially with reloaded cartridges. Various devices have been designed in the past for dealing with this problem. Many of these are quite old and will not work properly with modem firearms and rimless cartridges.
Many of the earlier extractors are designed with a core mandrel having an enlarged head, and a surrounding segmented tube. Rearwardly facing shoulders are provided on the tube segments, near their ends. In use, the mandrel and tube are inserted into the broken casing and when the end of the tube passes the end of the casing, the mandrel is pulled back to expand the end of the tube so that the shoulders will engage the end of the casing. Further tension on the mandrel draws the end of the tube and the cartridge engaged by it from the chamber. The mandrel may be pulled by the firearm's cartridge extractor or by a separate lever working against the end of the breech. In another early device, the extractor is driven out using a cleaning rod.
The earlier systems are generally not usable with modem rimless cartridges. When inserting the extractor, the mandrel could be driven into the chamber far enough that the cartridge extractor could not engage the base of the mandrel to pull the extractor and cartridge from the chamber.
The object of the present invention is to provide a simple, effective extractor for modem firearms that does not require special tools or an expanding mandrel.